


A Call in the High Country

by Falke



Series: A Call in the High Country [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magic, Minor Original Character(s), Swords & Sorcery, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-02-15 19:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falke/pseuds/Falke
Summary: A power as old as time itself stirs in the wilderness, and threatens to consume all who feel its pull. Scoundrel and Sentinel alike are swept up - and will have to reckon with what they're prepared to sacrifice to survive.A magical fantasy AU.





	1. Chapter 1

Nicholas Wilde pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and waited in the shadow of the well. He wished his charges for the evening would step as lively as he did. The longer they were out here, the higher the chances that Sentinels would be along to challenge them.

He supposed that was what he got for working with tourists.

The two beavers eventually trundled up across the square behind him. They were huddled close together against the bite of the wind, heads bowed to watch their feet in the drifting snow. The male carried a bulging traveler's sack.

"How much further, Mr..."

"West." Nicholas pointed toward the bluff that rose at the edge of village. "And not far now. Your accommodations are just down there, by the stream."

"You told us at the inn that your rooms were the best the village had to offer." The man's companion hadn't stopped complaining this whole time. "But we're almost at the wall. Isn't that dangerous? They say the magic-"

"The Ford hasn't seen trouble for years," Nicholas cut her off. He kept his easy smile in place. "From bandits or otherwise. The Council Watch is too thorough for that."

She looked dubious.

"The stream and the square are just steps away. There's fresh water, and a baker down the road, and you'll get first light when the sun rises tomorrow."

They weren't buying it. Nicholas pushed the wide door open and now even the husband's face started to twitch with disgust. He narrowed his beady eyes.

"This is a barn."

Nicholas ignored the scent of the mostly-fresh hay he'd stocked the place with. It _was_ a barn, at least during the warm season. But he knew the owner packed up and left for the shores to the south this time of year, and left the building empty.

And it was odd that two beavers would complain about it. Didn't they live in dams? A barn was a far sight better than earthwork and raw timber already.

They were the ones with the gold, though, and who was he to judge by appearances? They certainly didn't take his cloak for anything more than that of a part-time innkeep.

"And this is, for better or for worse, the best Morrigan's Ford has to offer right now." He grimaced in affected sympathy. "There's just the one inn, and it's full up - which is the whole reason we had to expand to alternate rooms. I know it's not much, but it will be warm and dry." He paused while a gust pushed flurries of snow past them. The woman shivered. "And it will be out of the cold. I'll see about more fuel for the brazier, so you can run it all night."

The chill wind seemed to help the beavers come to a decision. They shared a glance and the husband finally nodded.

"I suppose it's the best we'll hope for on short notice," he said. "It's all right, Meera. Look, there's the heater. We can make a nice supper."

With their minds finally made up, they passed over the gold. Nicholas took it carefully, without making a show of it. It had been a long time since he'd had two whole pieces to rub together, but they didn't need to know that.

"There's a door for small mammals there in the wall." He pointed. "And a trough on the far side. Make yourselves comfortable. I'll be back with more fuel soon."

He was telling the truth, but he had another stop to make first.

The Burrow End Inn was a whole different kind of warm. There was smoke on the air and great roaring fires, not like the little braziers Nicholas' charges would huddle around tonight. Chatter from dozens of mammals washed over him as he pushed through the doors and the crowd. He could smell roasting meat and garlic.

Jalis, the innkeep, was a broad-shouldered ox who was at once kindly and a completely ruthless businessmammal, depending on who asked. Nobody gave him a second look, even when he paused at the end of the bar to bend and confer with a fox in a dark cloak.

Nicholas gave him his cut in the scam - twenty silver for the lost business from turning away the beavers, and twenty silver for the room Nicholas had reserved himself, for the next few nights. In weather like this, he would treat himself with a proper hearth and feather bed.

"Any sign of the Watch?" he asked.

Jalis just raised an eyebrow.

Nicholas sighed and flicked another silver back the innkeep's way with a thumb. Jalis caught it out of the air.

"Not a peep, on a night like this," he rumbled, and winked. The coin disappeared. "Last anyone here talked of them, they were to the east, securing the supply roads."

"Still?" Nicholas shrugged and tapped his forehead in salute. "West it is, then. Don't wait up for me."

\---

He moved from shadow to shadow with practiced ease, not that it was all that necessary in the midnight cold. The roads were deserted, especially so down here where the river curved its way south again. The old dock and its storehouses where the harbormaster collected coal and pitch might have looked abandoned, if one didn't know better.

Yet Nicholas still paused to concentrate from time to time, to blur his silhouette and shroud his form, so anyone watching the widest roads through the moonlight might mistake his passage for the wind stirring in the trees, or a gust of glittering snow. It was just safer that way.

Nicholas knew all about _safe_. It was the only way to go through life these days, when every evening some new whisper shot through the village of bandit sightings and farmer disappearances and talk of whole villages swallowed by storms. That old beaver was surely just repeating the same, but what if she was right? What if magic really was stirring - not just in the old places, but in lands that hadn't felt the wild energy in so long that it had become legend?

The notion made him uneasy, because he still couldn't discount it. Willow Vale, beyond the hills, already crawled with a strange static. it was like something he could almost smell, almost hear. He steered clear now, even if it meant a hit to his meager business. If it got any worse, he might have to think about leaving entirely. He didn't want to get tangled up in it when the rest of the village finally caught on. By then it would surely be too late.

Most other mammals were rightly scared of it, too - the Council Watch rushed around to follow up on even the most tenuous or rumors, and wealthy mammals hired militias on top of that to protect their lands and from the opportunists and bandits that exploited the chaos. The most foolish of mammals heard tell of its power and sought it out for themselves, never mind that in the old stories, the energy overwhelmed its vessels and rotted them from within.

It was all anyone ever talked about now - and so Nicholas didn't feel guilty at all about looking out for himself at the expense of others. If they were too busy worrying about magic, or more bandit attacks, to ask more careful questions about who they were buying a room from, that was hardly his problem. It wasn't like anyone was getting hurt.

Of course, not everyone saw it so cleanly. They kept reminding him of it, too.

Nicholas stopped in the dark shadow where the wood of the coal hoppers was cracked and warped enough that small pieces occasionally fell through. This, too, was nothing anyone would miss.

But the ground was mostly clear, all the way up to the edge of the shed. Nicholas came around the divider, his attention on the snow in front of him, and stopped.

A rabbit stood at the top of the mound of coal. She wore a suit of dull metal armor, which was so large on her frame it might have been comical, had she not also carried a serious polearm sharpened to a razor edge. Even planted in the loose material under her feet, it was longer than she was tall.

Nicholas swallowed the wariness and smiled. He should have known she wouldn't be far behind him.

"Cold night to be lurking around here," he said.

"Not cold enough, it seems." She shifted her feet - grey fur now smudged black from where she'd walked in the coal - and slid down the pile so she could scowl at him at his eye level. "Nicholas Wilde. What brings you to the docks?"

He kept his paws where she would be able to see them. "A mammalitarian gesture, nothing more. My clients need to keep warm tonight."

"Yes, I saw you leading those travelers across the square." Her eyes narrowed. "What did you dupe them into this time? A sty? The compost shack?"

"You wound me, Hopps."

She drew herself up, which wasn't saying much, considering her stature, and tapped a paw to the cobalt trim on her pauldrons. "That's Sentinel Hopps to you."

"Spend some time out in Willow Vale and everything changes. Judith Hopps, a full Sentinel now..."

Her breath clouded in a sigh. "You know the drill, Wilde. Stand on the path, and put those knives of yours at your feet."

It wasn't worth forcing the issue here in the cold. For all his tone, Nicholas had no interest in actually crossing blades with even the most diminutive of the Council Watch. He had no doubt she was stronger and smarter than she appeared - still probably not enough to prevail in a fight, but why risk a fight in the first place? And she would probably know if he tried to hide his intentions from her, to get the upper paw. That was the opposite of _safe_.

So he drew his daggers from his cloak - slowly - and laid them in the frozen grass at the edge of the road.

"The mammals you swindle might not know or care that you're not really an innkeep," Judith said. "But you can't steal coal to keep them warm. Not when there's wood for the gathering." Her foot tapped. " _All of them_ , Nicholas."

Now Nicholas did grimace, and reached behind him to pull a third slender knife from the back of his belt. "Technically, the path on this side of the building is public lands. That the dockmaster can't be bothered to maintain his storehouses isn't my-"

"Enough." The edge of her glaive caught the moonlight. "Are we going to have a problem, Nicholas?"

"Well, you've done your best to ensure problems are impossible."

Her eyes flashed. "If only you were as considerate."

Nicholas smiled again. This was nothing he hadn't heard before. He was a troublemaker. Shifty. _Sly_. It came with the red tail, and the fangs and the wandering paws. He let it roll off while she paced around him and looked him up and down, as if deciding whether to make it official.

And eventually Judith's frown softened. "I know there are mammals that need to stay warm, Nicholas. You should know that's the only good reason I have not to arrest you again."

"Oh?" His strongest memory of that night in the Watchhouse was the snickering from the other Sentinels, when they'd seen Judith had bothered hauling his harmless tail in at all. To this day, he still didn't know if she'd ignored it, or if she just hadn't caught it. "It's certainly not because you have nothing better to do."

She ignored the bait. "Stick to wood, and we won't have to keep doing this."

"You don't enjoy our chats?" He bent to retrieve his tools and spirited them away under his cloak again. "You'd rather be off chasing the rumors of wilds magic?"

"I would rather be patrolling the roads for bandits with the Captain," she corrected him, and hopped off the coal with a clank of plates to stand on the path. Her ears had jumped back up and she was watching him closely in the moonlight. An even more sensitive subject than he'd thought, then. Interesting. "Especially now. But someone has to keep an ear on the village, if only for the hapless travelers who don't know any better about you."

She'd drawn night watch in midwinter, in other words. Someone at the Watchhouse really didn't like her. This time he hid the smile.

"Far be it from me to impede you any further, then," Nicholas said. He touched his brow.

" _Wood_ , Nicholas." She angled her glaive. "And stay out of trouble."

"Oh, certainly." And for once, he meant it. As soon as he was done disappointing the beavers he'd put up in the barn with the few pieces of coal he'd already collected, Nicholas intended to splurge on a nice hot meal and sleep until noon.

He turned to leave her standing in the cold wind, and didn't bother sneaking. She would see right through it.


	2. Chapter 2

Judith was freezing, but she knew that adding another tunic under her mail would just make the whole lot heavier, and she wouldn't even have the energy to shiver.

Not that she would have noticed just now. Her indignation over the village's most persistent fox was helping keep her warm on her rounds.

He didn't respect Sentinel armor at all, and it never seemed to matter. Wilde didn't think of her as a keeper of the peace, much less any kind of threat at all. And none of the other Sentinels ever bothered putting him in his place. Maybe they knew it was a lost cause.

She hadn't put him right about the bandit threat, about what she'd seen in the forest when she was afield. He wouldn't have believed her anyway, most likely. Certainly wouldn't have lifted a paw to help.

No, it was her duty and her duty alone to struggle up cold stone stairs designed for larger mammals, and let the westerly wind at the top of the battlement chill her armor out even more. Morrigan's Ford was quiet below her, with only a few lights burning to betray signs of life at all.

She saw that for the bigger picture that Wilde couldn't, or wouldn't. That was what Fangmire had meant, she knew. If she and the rest of the Watch didn't do their jobs - even when they were cold and lonely - that sleepy, boring peace could slip away. It had happened already, in the villages and towns furthest from the Keep. The story was different each time - storms, or sickness, and now bandits, yes - but the result was the same.

Now, as it sometimes did, the Keep had sent a special detachment to bolster the depleted garrison. A wolverine named Fellwater and his retinue of minor officials had arrived and set up shop. As far as Judith was concerned that was only making things more difficult.

The visits tended to be her best view yet of the corruption that seeped around some edges of the Council Watch. Fellwater never actually assisted with peacekeeping, as far as she could tell. He was far more interested in parlaying his status as a Keep representative into free drinks at the village's taverns, than preparing for the possibility of a bandit assault. He bullied citizens, ignored anyone he outranked and had once threatened Judith with imprisonment herself when she had wandered late one night and seen him in furtive conversation with one of the dockmasters.

She was the last one she wanted to have to take orders from with bandits and maybe something worse on the prowl. But she could only stay out of his way and do her job to the best of her ability. Until Fangmire returned, for better or for worse, Fellwater's word was law.

So Judith continued her pacing, all the way down the length of the western wall. She passed flickering torches and the lone guardhouse, where Hayfew, the oldest goat on the Watch, somehow stayed awake, propped on his pike. He, at least, always spared her a nod as she went by.

And all remained as it should be when she came off the wall. The docks were still quiet, and the roads to the south that went into the fields. There was no sign of Wilde - though she wasn't sure she would know he was there, if he wanted to hide from her.

Judith had even dared to start hoping of a cup of hot soup and a warm billet when the noise came to her over the wind.

She paused in the archway of the western gate, perked her ears up again and listened hard.

It was just the wind. Just the wind, and the flutter and snap of the torch in its bracket-

And the faint rasp of hooves on the other side of the locked gate.

Judith stood rooted where she was, while the training she finally had to use for real seemed to take forever to come to mind in the cold. The window in the gate was too high for her, and there was no stool like the one she kept at the main gate to the north. There were no other sentries to alert - the nearest was Hayfew, back down the wall.

So she snatched the torch from its holder herself and jumped up the stairs again, unsteady with such large tools in each paw. Sudden resolve buoyed her every step of the way. Something in her knew this was of vital importance.

The wind battered her sensitive ears back when she came to the parapet - and here, too, she was too short to see out properly. And again that urgency dug at her ribs. She clambered right up onto the ramparts and braced her glaive between them, trusting the stout ash pole to support her weight and her even heavier armor while she leaned out over the dizzying drop.

" _Who goes there?_ Sing out for the Watch!"

Still no answer against the wind - and only barely did Judith see the glint of nighttime eyes looking back up at her. Wide and round. Prey. Someone was out there, all right, and they needed her help. These days especially, travelers who came to harm passing between the villages weren't always lucky enough to make it to the next one.

So back down to the gate she went, to haul on the giant bolt and push it open. But she was not prepared to meet something so beyond even her ability and overwhelming desire to help. Her words, her carefully prepared speech - they guttered in her throat.

They were both dressed for fair weather in the fields, not a midwinter storm, and they were so exhausted they made no move to stagger forward into shelter.

A deer, Judith finally identified her, with glassy eyes and swaying on her feet where a bobcat supported her - and both of them dripping blood in the fresh snow from fur and skin that had been flayed half off their bones.

\---

"Sergeant Fellwater is taking care of it, Hopps."

_"Fellwater?"_ It was all too fast. The adrenaline hadn't slowed down even half an hour after Judith had seen the night's surprise visitors, and now she was more concerned for those mammals than ever. She felt hot under her armor. "Betner, I need to see them. I need to know what happened."

The moose shook his head and held up a hoof to stop her where she was, on the road outside the Watch Haven. "No more bending the rules, Judith." His voice was steel. "Fellwater has his orders from the Keep itself. Wild magic has to be addressed by the ranking mammals. A runner has already left with the news."

"So it _was_ magic."

Betner lowered his antlers. "Hopps, you should drop this. For your own sake."

"Summon Captain Fangmire, then," Judith snapped. The specter of the injured mammals hovered in her vision. She didn't think it was ever going to go away. "Put someone with an ounce of compassion in charge. This is too dangerous to leave to anyone else. Magic likes this - it's worse than the bandits. He would agree."

"Even if the messenger reaches him, he might not be able to return." Betner pointed east.

"It's been a week now since we left him. He's overdue." The resolve was lesser now - when they had taken the mammals away into the dark, the immediate urgency had faded. But now the dread roiling in Judith's stomach was somehow even worse.

"Aye. But Fellwater is within his rights to do as he will until the messenger returns with new orders."

"Betner, nobody else saw the encounter like I did-"

"And they need not, to do their jobs," he cut her off. His hoof thudded onto the cobbles. "That's the end of this, Hopps. The best thing you can do right now is stand to your post." He ducked along with her as another whistle of frigid wind came up the road between the buildings. He sighed. "If magic really has started to twist the wilds out there, there could well be others who need help. Even tonight."

"Help from Fellwater," Judith scoffed. But that seemed to be it. The few members of the Watch who were still sympathetic to her either had orders themselves, or weren't around to sway things. Hammering on the front door wasn't going to change any minds.

So she turned to go, and turned around the beginnings of a new plan in her mind. Betner could keep his orders. She needed answers. What she'd found outside the gate was too shocking and unsettling to leave to the slim chance that others would do the right thing.

It was just a hunch, but she knew the locals in this village well enough to guess at where they might wait our a storm like this one. Her heart sank as she approached the Burrow End Inn, and thought of the mammals Nicholas had cheated out of a good night's rest. He would pay for it somehow, she vowed.

The scent of roasting meat - fish, and otherwise - turned her stomach, but she steeled herself and plunged into the crowds, and trusted that mammals would get out of the way of the polearm on her back. It was indeed mostly predators here, some from the village proper and some from the outskirts, sheltering from the fierce storms that lashed the open fields this time of year. If Judith hadn't known better, she wouldn't have guessed the rumors of bandits or worse at the edges of Keep territory was a concern at all. Everyone was drinking and carousing, having a good time.

None but the Watch had heard tonight's news, then. That was either good, or bad.

Innkeep Jalis didn't object to Sentinel business that came through. He wasn't stupid. He knew the Watch turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to some of the things he did, and that put him in a delicate position.

So he didn't so much as point or even nod when Judith asked him where Nicholas Wilde was. He just blinked his big eyes and told her he'd found a hearth in the corner.

Nicholas had his back to the wall in a little nook, so he could keep an eye on everything and everyone. The nonchalance of his feet up on the stool had to be an act. He had a little bundle of something on the table - dried fish, maybe. At least it didn't reek.

And Judith didn't even get the satisfaction of surprise on his muzzle when she came up. He simply smiled that smile and used his feet to extend the seat for her.

"What?" He asked when she'd climbed up. "I still haven't stolen anything. You were very persuasive."

"I'd call you a terrible liar, if I thought it would do any good." She watched him chew the tough meat, and reminded herself she was out of options. She might not have to tell him she needed his help, but she had to swallow all of her objections. "You're still under arrest."

There it was, just for a flicker. He stopped the idle motion of his jaws and his sharp-edged ears pinned her in place, until his smirk took back over.

"You really need to learn to not take things so personally."

"This isn't about my armor," she said, already struggling to hold onto the conversation. Why did he always have to be so ingratiating? "I just need to ask you some questions about tonight. As a resident of the village under Council Watch protection, you are obligated to cooperate with reasonable demands."

"And I'm cooperating." Nicholas rather looked like he wanted to put his feet back up. He waved an indulgent paw. "Fire away."

"I mean cooperate officially," Judith said. She shook her head. "At the Watchhouse, not here. You can either come with me and leave tonight, or come with me and stay there. How it goes is up to you."

The fire crackled. It really was warm and cozy in this corner. She could see why he'd chosen it, and now even she was reluctant to leave it.

"It's not often I miss something, you know." Nicholas still didn't change his posture, but now he looked from her to the rowdy bar behind her. His eyes flicked through the shadows and lingered on the windows through to the snow outside. "I'll come with you, but only if you tell me what has you so spooked first."

"So you can run from that, too?"

"So I know what I'm getting into." His claws clicked on the floorboards. "But yes. If the big bad Sentinel is scared of it, I expect I should be, too."

He was the one dictating to her again, somehow. But Judith had known going in she wasn't going to be able to out-talk him. She got off the stool and waited for him to join her. "Outside."

\---

They wouldn't be eavesdropped on in this weather, Judith was sure. Still, it didn't hurt to be careful about what she said.

"There were injured mammals at the gate." She looked west, through the snow and over darkened fields and shops. "Not far from where I found you scrounging your coal."

Nicholas followed her gaze. He was walking beside her, under arrest by way only of tacit agreement for the moment. She let it be; he wouldn't have come so quietly if she'd tried to shackle him anyway. "As far as I know, the only thing I've injured tonight is your pride."

"Hardly," she said. "I don't think even you could manage this."

"So certain."

"This time, yes." She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the bitter cold that her armor just wouldn't turn away.

She was aware of his eyes on her at that, but she couldn't look up. She was too busy checking cross streets and darkened windows to make sure their walk wasn't noticed. And she felt him changing, too. His sense shifted from condescension to something quieter and more careful. More purposeful. Her ear twisted toward him of its own accord.

"Suppose I do play along, then," he said, and resettled his cloak tighter around himself, so all but the red flashes of his own ears were hidden. "You haven't told me what's in it for me yet."

"Yes, I have." Judith beckoned him forward through the last alleyway, to where the single lantern hung over the door. "You come with me until I say otherwise, and then you can leave-" She pushed on the door to hold it for him, and hoped the scrapes and squeaks it always gave would distract him from this next little bluff. "Or you can have a nice warm cell here while I tell the harbormaster about the coal you stole."

"See, now I know you're lying." Nicholas stood where he was and shook his head at her. "If the chief of the Watch had really sent the errand-rabbit to collect me, we'd be going in the front gate, so you could show them all how well you did."

She gritted her teeth. "Inside."

_"No."_ His own sharp points glittered in the lamplight. "I know when I'm being used, Carrots. You're going to need something better than petty theft you can't actually prove."

"Don't call me that."

"Then level with me." He crossed his arms under his cloak, like he was still lounging by the fireside at the inn. "Did the bandits find something? Don't tell me they've outsmarted the Watch."

She cast a look down the deserted hallway. They needed to get off the street, and out of the common areas. Fellwater and his ilk were in charge right now, and they wouldn't take kindly to anyone sneaking around.

And still Nicholas waited. Judith hissed in quiet frustration.

"If I could explain what I saw, I would," she said. "There were two of them, in fair-weather clothes. A doe and a bobcat, with horrible wounds." Her stomach rolled. "She was cleaved from throat to waist. Their fur was pulled from their limbs."

She had the satisfaction of seeing Nicholas' ears flicker and sharpen the words. But that condescending smile of his still didn't crack.

"Fair clothes, in midwinter."

Judith didn't know why, either. "They were in shock."

"Or putting on appearances. Hiding their true forms."

"I know an illusion when I see one, Nicholas. It doesn't leave blood in the snow." She shook her head. "Betner, the sentry here - he said it was unbound magic."

That seemed to do it. He watched her for another long moment, with his head cocked. But he finally stepped forward over the threshold. It was probably the first time he'd voluntarily been in these halls.

Judith didn't give him the chance to change his mind, or waste time asking why that had done the trick. She pointed him ahead of her, as a prisoner ought to proceed. They had to keep moving, but where to? With injuries like those, the mammals must have been taken to the infirmary. Up the stairs.

"Anyone who finds us is going to notice you haven't bound my paws," he murmured.

"They'll just assume you've untied yourself," Judith said. She paused them at the infirmary door and spread an ear to its edge. She couldn't hear anyone moving around inside.

"Why not take them to the Keep?" Nicholas asked. "If they're hurt as badly as you say-"

"Shh." She cut him off. "We wouldn't be able to move them in this weather. And Fellwater wouldn't bother anyway."

"Ah, the wolverine." His ears flicked again. "No wonder you're sneaking around."

Judith didn't rise to the bait, and pushed the door open.

There were six beds here, and each of them was neatly made. The apothecary's rack was untouched, and the hearth was bare embers.

Judith stood in the entrance, feeling her grand flourish fizzle into consternation and fresh dread.

Nicholas stopped in the room and turned to her. With his hood down, the full force of his sarcasm made her ears burn as surely as any fire.

"They made a full recovery, then."

"No," she said. "No, they had to be here. There's no other place for them." The side room, with two more beds, was just as deserted. The fire here was even colder. "The rest of the Watch brought them through the front doors on stretchers."

Nicholas turned, his tail sweeping behind him, and made for the door. "Betner, you said? Maybe I ought to ask him about it."

"No!" She rushed to put herself between him and the open door back down the steps. "If mammals start asking questions there will be a panic. No one else knows."

He reached out to stop the glaive on her back from swaying too close. "No one other than you, you mean."

"Nicholas-"

"I don't play the Watch's games for them," he cut her off. "What is it you really want me here for? I don't think you're smart enough to whip up some tale about magic."

"This is no game," Judith said, feeling her own anger rising to meet his. "I don't-"

Gruff laughter bounced up the stone hallway. Judith whirled in the doorway. Someone was coming up.

And there was nowhere to go. The beds wouldn't hide them. The windows were too thin for even her to get through, with nowhere to stand outside anyway.

Judith surprised herself with her own strength. She pushed Nicholas ahead of her, back into the side room, and pulled the door shut behind them. There were no windows in here. Near-total darkness descended, broken only by the lazy coals in the fireplace, and the crack of firelight through from the other room.

And not a moment too soon. Nicholas' protests died under the thump and scratch of footfalls. Someone large, then, and someone with claws.

"Some doctor," a deep voice rumbled. It was Lansing, a rhino, one of Fellwater's companions. "If he leaves his bag at his bed."

"I don't see why he bothers anyway." That was Fellwater himself. Judith would recognize the voice anywhere, like he had a sneer permanently grafted onto his muzzle. "No need to make them comfortable. They're not long for this world."

Her heart was in her throat, even as she saw the skepticism draining out of Nicholas' eyes. She didn't even feel the satisfaction of proving him wrong. Yes, the mammals were here - but they hadn't been helped yet. If it had been anyone but Fellwater out there, she would have burst through the door and demanded to know why.

"Mm. Fangmire will notice the smell, or Brookover." Fabric rustled and drawers opened. They were searching the room. "If he ever comes back. What do we tell the rest?"

"Leave that to Betner," Fellwater said. "Or the doctor. He said he wanted to be the one disposing of them, when he's done with his poking and prodding. Just to be safe."

_What?_

"All it means is more work," Lansing grumbled. "The Watch and the Lord's Guard alike are stretched too thin with bandits to worry about some new vergence. Farmers aren't our problem, if they want to live outside the walls so badly."

"Heron said they look just like those hyenas he found in Willow Vale."

_Willow Vale?_

She felt Nicholas stiffen beside her, too, and risked paying more attention to him than to the conversation outside. He knew the place. She watched him travel the path to the west, sometimes. But the Council Watch hadn't heard from the village for two weeks. Was it not because they were snowed in?

Floorboards creaked, and a shadow erased most of the orange firelight. Judith tensed. Someone was coming to the door, and if they opened it-

And if they opened it, what? There was something she had to remember. They would see- _something_. The adrenaline pounded in her ears.

_Nicholas._ She twisted and reached out, to seize his throat in her claws and drag him down to her eye level. His fur was warm.

His hackles bunched under her touch, and his silent gaze was furious, but as he lowered his paw from out in front of him to the dagger on his belt the confusion faded from her mind. Everything else - their frozen hiding spot, the mammals with magical injuries, Fellwater's scorn and doubtless fury, should he find them here - came rushing back. She tensed to run, if it came to that.

"Oh, here it is," Lansing said.

The shadow at the door paused, and retreated. Vials tinkled.

"Enough here to lay you or me low, much less a little deer. The good doctor really is twisted, isn't he?"

"Yeah, least we'd do them quick," Fellwater said. Footsteps started up again. "But compared to wild magic, even whatever he has planned is like doing them a favor."

Judith waited, with her claws screwed into Nicholas' throat, until the door slammed and the laughter and footsteps faded back down the stairwell. He finally twisted out of her grasp and they spilled back into the bright infirmary. She felt dizzy.

Nicholas clearly wasn't. He crossed the room to the door - and instead of opening it, he shoved the bolt home with a metallic clack.

"You're very _trusting_ , rabbit."

"And you're reckless," Judith shot back, trying to ignore the alarm she felt at his posture and tone when he turned to stare her down. He was a fox, the traditional nemesis of rabbits like her, and right now he looked angry enough to make good on that old arrangement. "Keep your illusions away from me. I can't find out what's going on if you're clouding my mind like that."

His laugh was sharp and humorless. "You think that was for you? That was Fellwater, wasn't it? What if he had opened the door? With you distracting me we would both be as good as dead."

Dead? Judith's ears rang. It was so much to take in, and once again, he was more right than she wanted to admit to herself. "He wouldn't kill one of his own."

"They way I hear it, you may as well not be," Nicholas said. "And what about me?"

"What _about_ you? He didn't do it."

"And I haven't made it as far as I have by trusting that he wouldn't," Nicholas said. He waved his paw, still full of sharp points. "Or by messing about in whatever corruption and magic you've brought on yourself now."

He believed her. That was something. But Judith still cooled. The injured mammals would be somewhere below, then. The only other room for extra mammals in the Watchhouse would be in the storerooms. Or the cells. The thought chilled her.

"We can still stop it."

"You can."

"Those mammals could die if we don't help them," Judith protested. "You heard Fellwater. They're still alive somewhere."

"No. If unbound magic found them then they are already lost," Nicholas said. His voice softened and went almost hushed, when he looked at the empty beds. He was thinking the same thing. "You've never seen that, have you? The others must have. They say no one recovers." His paw shimmered in the firelight. "It's not like this. It doesn't bow to anyone's will. Not mine, and certainly not yours."

Judith recoiled from the casual spellcraft. Even from across the room, it was eerie and uncomfortable to see someone bend reality like that. "So we consign them to death."

"There is no _we_ here, Hopps," Nicholas repeated. He laid his paw back on the bolt and looked away. "If this really is wilds magic, I'm going the other way while I still can."

"To flee," Judith said. "To hide from rumors like you tried to hide just now."

"Until they're not rumors." Nicholas shook his head. The barb didn't even make his mask flicker.

"And where will you go?" Judith stepped quickly, to put her weight on the ponderous door and push it back shut. Nicholas leaned back from where her glaive stuck up over her ears. "Not Willow Vale. Something happened there, didn't it? You know."

His ears were flat. "I don't know, and I don't intend to find out."

He sounded so certain now, so quick to believe in this new threat to avoid, and Judith rebelled against the obvious lie. Willow Vale wasn't supposed to be on the edge of anything. The nearest magical vergence had to be hundreds of miles from its walls, across forests and great peaks. The farmers and fishers there had far more to fear from the midwinter storms.

And yet there were mammals at Judith's gate now, just clinging to life. Lawlessness raged brighter than ever in the hills now, severe enough that the Watch was sorely depleted. There was some reason for it. There had to be. And if something had happened just the next village over...

What if Fellwater was right?

The infirmary felt cold and lifeless now, and not just because somewhere below them, the mammals who should have been here were slipping away. She'd heard herself that Fellwater wasn't about to lift a paw to help. Until Fangmire and the rest came back - _unless_ they came back - Judith was on her own. There was just one other option.

"You've been there," she said.

"And I'm not going back." Nicholas shook his head again, when he realized what she was planning. He renewed his grip on the door, to pull it open. Judith braced against it.

"But you know the way. You know how to get in and out, what to look for that's out of the ordinary."

"Leave me out of this, Hopps." The door groaned open, despite her best efforts. "I have no interest in getting killed alongside you."

"Running away won't keep you safe forever," she said.

"I don't know, it's worked well so far." He held the door for her, but his eyes were still cold. When he saw she wasn't going to follow after all, he shrugged and turned to leave. His cloak swirled around his tail. "Certainly better than rushing into matters I can't control."

There was no one else Judith could turn to, she was certain. And now her mind was racing away from her. Betner wouldn't let her leave, because he never thought far enough outside the next day's orders. Fangmire might well be dead. And now the one other mammal who knew was pulling his hood back up, content to slink away again and leave mammals in the cellar and the Watchhouse and probably the whole village to their own devices.

It was wrong. It was cowardly and selfish and Judith knew that if he left, she would blame herself, too, for not trying harder. There were still pieces she could play.

"I could go straight to the Keep, and tell Lord Briarthorn all about your arrangement with Jalis at Burrow End."

"Jalis is too valuable to this village to interfere with, and we both know it." Nicholas didn't even break stride. "Especially if its days truly are numbered. You do that, and I'll see that he knows who's responsible."

Judith nearly tripped on the winding staircase in her haste to follow. Was there nothing he couldn't just shrug off? "Are you threatening a Sentinel?"

"You tell me." He finally stopped in the doorway before the cold road and turned to look her up and down. "No Sentinel I know would try to blackmail someone else for help."

She was still searching for a reply when he vanished into the night.

\---

Now Judith was very much alone, and she felt it. The halls of the Watchhouse had lost all of their warmth and promise. She knew that somewhere in its depths, there was something wrong - something that ran not just against the rules of nature, but counter to the ideals she and her companions had sworn to uphold.

She couldn't be part of it.

Instead she found her paws packing the largest haversack she could carry, with provisions and canteens. She even wrote a letter on a scrap of parchment, and shoved it through the crack under the door to Betner's billet. He would find it eventually, she hoped. Whether he would accept the explanation about emergency or reconnaissance didn't matter. By then it would be too late.

By then she would be through this gate, and out into the hills. Beyond recall.

She hesitated in the archway. If she left, it would be without a travelling companion. In the dead of winter's midnight, without knowing what she was looking for, or where. She would be disregarding her orders, again, and this time far more severely than Fangmire would be able to overlook. Bandits haunted the whole northern forest now. She would be leaving the mammals here at more risk than ever.

But this was bigger than bandits now. She was sure of it.

Even if all she had was the why. The feeling - the bedrock _dread_ \- that the residents of this tiny village wouldn't wake to the threat out there in time, because the Watch that remained here had failed their duties and fallen to corruption and self-interest. It had snuck up on them, in this very snow, now mashed into icy mud where the others had come to take the injured mammals away.

If she didn't leave to search for answers, if she didn't chase that call to venture out and meet the threat - something in her knew it would just happen again, and again.

Judith took her glaive in a firm paw and threw the bolt.


	3. Chapter 3

She had forgotten just how unforgiving the wilderness could be, and not just because of the more difficult terrain away from the road. That she could deal with, with a polearm for a walking stick. It was worth the tradeoff, to keep from attracting untoward attention until she was ready to.

But Judith was the only one mad enough to venture out into the cold, it seemed, and her drive to leave immediately had blunted against the chill wind in just hours. She couldn't hear anything over it, she couldn't see anything in the gloom now that the moon had sunk, and her paws had lost their sensation.

She had to stop for the night in the lee of a stone wall at the very edge of the wide fields that ringed the village. It would be out of the wind, at the very least, and dry if only because the ditch it crouched above was frozen solid. She sat and dried her feet on the hem of her traveler's cloak, and tried to conjure up some of the old enthusiasm she had brought to her old training. It would have been easier to feel excited about nights in the field, she decided, without the quiet gnaw of fear beneath it all.

She rose with first light, feeling nearly dead with cold. But her ears lifted when she saw she was still on track. The thin sun was rising behind her, which put Willow Vale somewhere ahead of her, and not far. It would have been a day's march with clear conditions. She could climb the tallest hill here and probably see all the way to its gates.

And the hike warmed her up, along with a radish from her pack. The countryside lay like a blanket under the summit. It was mostly rolling hills from here, covered in wispy windblown snow and the scratchy shapes of trees that had dropped their leaves for the season. The river wound south, and the white of the clear path disappeared into the hills to the west.

Judith could not, in fact, see the next village yet, thanks to the fog and the curve of the hills. But with the sun up, she felt more comfortable returning to the road. Once the harvest ended, most mammals stayed put for the cold seasons. Only the Watch and the occasional traveler made it this way. The quiet was normal, she had to remind herself.

But the blood on the stones was not.

Something animal and unconscious in Judith twisted away from that universal sign of conflict. But she stood her ground, for a good minute, listening hard. This had to be important.

It was old now, probably by days, if her grasp of tracking was enough to judge, but it was still unmistakable. Someone had probably rested here, for long enough to mark the gravel. It would match the injuries she had seen on the mammals at the gate.

Which way had they been going? Had they even used the road, or had they cut across it as they wandered? Frustration welled as Judith walked further, looking for other marks. Something terrible had happened out here, and for all she knew she was about to blunder into it herself.

But when she came around the bend, the sight was so mundane it was almost reassuring. Two mammals were on the path, making their way down the hill toward her. She called out a greeting and rushed to meet them.

They were capybara, females both, with loaded bags and patchwork clothing to keep the cold at bay. They looked exhausted, and as relieved to see Judith as she was to see them.

"You're a Sentinel! With the Watch!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Judith said. Her heart swelled, despite the cold and the dire circumstances. She didn't get to hear that tone as often as she'd like. "I'm from the Morrigan's Ford garrison. I came to help. Are there any others with you?"

"We hoped you might know," the elder said. Her face fell. "Gareth and the rest- it's been two days since we heard from them."

"What happened to them?" Judith asked. "Where did you come from?"

"We don't know what happened," she said. "We live in a homestead on the outskirts of the village."

"Willow Vale?"

"Yes," her companion said. "But the bandits came. Dada took our friends from across the field to go investigate-" her voice hitched. The elder - her mother, probably - hugged her closer.

"We waited for two days in the cellar," she said. "There was shouting and great crashes, and a roaring like thunder. When it got quiet in the night we had to leave. There's nothing left. No one else. Has the Watch not seen anyone? Is Gareth not alive?"

"You're the first I've met," Judith said, fighting the unsettling knowledge that the Watch's old quarry was both ahead and behind now. The bandits were moving faster than ever. "And I don't know about the rest of the Watch. They've been gone for almost two weeks now, hunting bandits."

Something in their expressions changed at that, even as they looked to her armor and weapon. They were wary. The mother pulled her daughter closer.

"They sent you out alone?"

"I left myself," Judith said, and pushed down on the indignation. They didn't have the full story, and she didn't have the time to explain it to them. "There are mammals in my village with strange injuries. I - we - need to know where they came from and what happened to them."

"Like magic?"

"Parda." The mother's tone was sharp enough to pull her daughter's ears around. "I told you not to fret about such myths. We have enough to worry about-"

"It's possible," Judith said. She grimaced when the mother frowned at her. "Probable, even. We've never seen anything like it."

"There's been no magic here for hundreds of years." She made it an accusation, as if it were Judith's fault.

"But have you seen-"

A strange whistle split the air. Judith snapped around.

There was a figure on the crest of the hill, a ferret in jerkin. Judith's first thought was that he was a companion of theirs.

But they recoiled - and ice took Judith's belly when she got a closer look at the figure.

_Him._

"Not again," Parda moaned. "That red ribbon - they were there that night, at the village."

Judith could see it now, around his right arm. It was definitely the same ferret. But he wouldn't have seen her armor, under her cloak. Would he recognize her? She took her glaive in both paws as her heart started to beat even faster.

"Keep to the road," she told them. "Morrigan's Ford is to the east. You'll be safe there."

"A half-day's walk," the mother protested.

"Go," Judith told them. She nodded encouragement to the daughter. She would be more receptive. "As quick as you can manage. Better you be there than here. The sentries will see you coming."

"She's right, mother. Come on."

This time, Judith felt the absence of allies as keenly as these two did. This time, she was supposed to know better than to rush off and confront troublemakers alone. But what choice did she have? Now she would have to, to keep the travelers safe. There was nothing for it.

"The Council Watch keep this road," she called out to him. She kept her advance up the path slow and steady this time, as she had been taught. "Your ill business ends here."

"I'll be." He had the same thin, nasal snicker that set her teeth on edge. "Didn't I scare you off last time, rabbit?"

So much for the Sentinels' fearsome reputation. She was still taller than him, didn't that count for anything? She turned briefly, to make sure the travelers were getting out of harm's way - but she kept an ear on him.

"Last time, you ran from _me_ ," she corrected him. "And there's no forest for you to vanish in this time."

"Oh, aye," he mocked her. "I'll just come quietly, then, shall I?"

He gave another piercing whistle before she could close the distance. There was a rustle from the brush behind her and the badger stepped out, not ten paces away. He had a ribbon just like the ferret's, and an enormous club in his paws. Judith stopped short. The adrenaline surged.

"Last chance," she said. "Or do you want the whole Watch after you again?"

"Now that'd be something," the ferret said. Now he was the one advancing. "Seeing since you told those two it was just you, all on your lonesome."

"Stop where you are." She leveled her glaive.

He leered. "Ain't me you got to worry about, sweetheart."

Judith heard the pounding paws and whirled to counter. The badger skidded to a stop in the gravel, reluctant to engage against the longer weapon. She took a step, to press the brief advantage and break the perimeter they had around her-

The arrow thudded into the side of her pack and spun her feet out from under her.

 _Archer._ Shock drove any semblance of tactics from her mind and she had to fight on instinct. She couldn't roll out of the way; She had to take the club against her crosswise haft and she thought it was about to snap under the impact. Her paws went numb.

The ferret dove in with a dagger in his paws and Judith had never been happier to be weighed down by armor. It skidded off her hidden cuirass and threw him off balance long enough for her to bring her glaive around in a flat slash.

He jerked back and escaped death by inches - instead of losing his head, he now bore a deep slice up his cheek and across one ear. Judith could see him bleeding, his mouth open in surprise and fury.

But before she could follow up, she had to turn again to deal with the badger's sweeping club. This time it knocked her weapon out of her paws - and he bulled right into her after it. Judith felt a terrific blow that left her ears ringing, and again she fell.

The last thing she remembered was the ground rushing up to meet her.

\---

It was dark again when she came to, and cold, but not as cold as it could have been. There was noise - still just a buzz in her ears - and faint scent. She kept still, as sensation returned, and tried to sort the confusing jumble out.

She was tied on her knees with her paws drawn behind her, spread to the trunk of a great oak. Her shoulders protested under the strain, and the blood in her ears drummed with her heartbeat. She could feel something itching along her brow and cheek.

She was in among a thick forest of pine and barren broadleaf trees, clear of snow, and deep enough that either no light came through or it was night. Instead, the orange flicker of a fire illuminated the nearest branches. Smoke stung thick in her nose. The fuel was green and wet.

And there were figures between her and the flames, one tall and canid with a bow stowed across their back, one small and hard to make out, what with their strange bulging head and only one ear. They prodded the fire with a stick and chatted.

"It's another days' march, to go around the village," the taller one said. "We never should have left the river in the first place. There were pickings there."

"I told you to drop it about your hunt." It was the ferret. Judith's ears sharpened it. "The storm woulda been right on top of us if we stayed. No bounty is worth getting fried." He stirred sparks from the logs. "We should have just kept killing them. It's less hassle, and they're easier to loot that way anyway."

Even hanging from a tree, she felt the adrenaline picking her heart back up. It was them, all right - the same ones she'd chased after in the wintry trees. And now - somehow - she was sure they spoke of magic.

She had to get free. She needed her weapon. And her supplies, if she would have any hope of apprehending them.

One step at a time. She twisted her wrist experimentally, trying to gauge the thickness of the rope they'd tied her with.

"And I'm tired of telling you, it's not about the money."

This one's voice was more measured, more condescending. Judith had heard it all before, too, from the drifters and lowlifes the Watch occasionally pulled into the cells. She didn't even need to see his muzzle properly to know he fancied himself a professional.

"That just makes it worse that you decided to pick on a bear," the ferret sneered. "You were listening to Dumas again."

"Dumas is the one who wanted them taken care of," the other one said. "And she obviously knew the rest of you wouldn't do it right."

"She told me," the ferret countered. "Who's the lieutenant here, again?"

"She only told you after you spoiled the ambush." He was a jackal, she could see when he turned, with sharp ears and a thin muzzle - like Nicholas, but larger. His eyes were narrower, and seemed much colder. "You should have left it to us. Competent prey needs competent hunters."

The ferret bristled. "You insubordinate-"

 _"Coward."_ The jackal showed teeth. "Prove me wrong."

There was a brief scuffle and pained yelp from the smaller mammal. He wrenched himself free and got distance, away from whatever the archer had done.

"Cowardly, and scared," his companion said.

"You're as crazy as Dumas is," the ferret panted. "The storm probably killed her, too. Did you think of that? It doesn't matter now."

"It does. I'm finishing the job, whether you help me or not."

"You left your prey tied up and bleeding in a shack, you idiot."

"And if you think that was enough to kill her after what we did to her mate, you're as stupid as Meeker was." The past tense made Judith uneasy - and Scura, too, she could see. The way he was recoiling, Meeker's stupidity must have ended especially violently. "She'll be free now, and you'd best hope I get to her before she gets to you."

"Fine," the ferret growled. "We'll take this one straight through Willow Vale, save some time. You can get your trail there. But if the magic comes back to kill us, I'm going to gut you before it does."

"I'm sure."

Three ears flicked back to catch the creak of the rope when Judith tested her bonds again. The ferret turned.

His muzzle and head were so swaddled in bandages that he was almost unrecognizable. His leer looked to be painful, at least.

"Well, well. Hey, Routt, go get us some more wood."

Routt screwed up his face at his companion's tone, but he got up. "Don't do anything more stupid than usual."

"Yeah, whatever."

Routt disappeared out of the firelight, and then out of Judith's hearing. The ferret sat on his log and shook his head.

"I knew Moren didn't kill you straight," he said.

"Who-" It came out almost unintelligible. Judith's throat was parched and half-closed where her head was bowed, and speaking at all made her head flare with pain. She tried again anyway. "Who are you?"

"Name's Scura. Scura the Red." He took his stick from the fire and padded over closer to her. The light bandages stood out from his dark coat. He must have raided them from her bag - she could see it over his shoulder now, open against a log by the fire, and none of his other clothes were that clean. He puffed out his chest so she would see the red cloth, and the ribbon around one of his arms. "Lieutenant of the Red Bandits."

"A whole lieutenant, huh?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and almost before she realized she'd heard something just like it before. It was worth the delayed shock on his wrapped muzzle. "They just give the title away, then."

He recovered his sneer quickly enough. "And why do you care?"

She'd memorized his name and _rank,_ for all the good it would do. It was hard to focus with the pounding headache. "I have to know who I'm going to throw in a cell."

He twirled the stick and looked around the isolated clearing. "What, now?"

"Do you realize what you've done?"

"Captured me my very own Sentinel," he said, as if she hadn't nearly killed him in the process. His prod had an ember on the end. It struck sparks off her tiny pauldron. She twitched her ears away from it and he smirked. "You know, I didn't think the Watch even took rabbits. Too weak and skinny, no stomach for slaying another mammal." He eyed her. "But I guess you'll sweeten the pot, if the Keep really wants you back."

He leaned just a bit too far, and again, before she could think it through, Judith surged to the very limit of her bonds. Her forehead cracked against his nose.

She regretted the move immediately. The pain exploded behind her eyes and set her forehead throbbing again. But it certainly hurt him, too. Scura stumbled and sat hard, with both paws clapped to the end of his muzzle.

"I volunteered," Judith growled. "Which is more than a murderer and a coward like you ever did. You'd rather prey on the weak. No matter what you do to me, you're going to answer for it."

He scrambled back to his feet, breathing hard. "Shoulda pinned your ears to the tree, too."

"The rest of the Watch knows where I went." She wished she felt more sure of it. The only one she'd told was Betner, and that was only if he'd found her message. "They'll come for me."

For a moment his eyes narrowed, as if he was considering the question for the first time. Then he got an awful, soulless smile despite his fresh injury, and showed jagged teeth where the bandages weren't covering.

"Keep telling yourself that, rabbit. Hope they're close, though, because we ain't staying in these damned woods past tonight anyway. And for that, maybe now you ain't coming with us." His grin edged sickly. "'Cept as maybe rations."

It chilled the fight straight out of her. They told wild stories about that in the jail sometimes, about predators that didn't honor the old taboos. She hadn't expected a bunch of riffraff bandits to be that extreme. But now the thought made her heart surge, and her paws flex. The pain in her head crested. She felt dizzy.

"Ah, don't you worry." The one eye Judith could see while he looked her up and down was not remotely reassuring. He stood tall again and used his stick under her quivering chin to force her head up, away from the hot coal at the end. His tongue snaked out to probe the damage her headbutt had done, and Judith felt a claw dragging along the soft fur of her cheek. "You and me, we'll get even, and then you won't feel a thing."

He left her like that, hanging from her bonds in a fresh roil of nausea and clammy panic. His chuckle echoed in her ears and the darkness rose to take her again.

\---

That she was alive at all she took as a blessing, but when she raised her head again, some hours later, a new fear took its place.

The fire was guttered. Scura and his companion, Routt, were snoring nearby.

And the darkness pressed in from every angle. She'd hit her head, she swore she remembered. It was making her vision tunnel. She couldn't see past the far trees, even though she knew the forest extended for leagues. Was she losing her sight?

But even as she strained to see them the crawling shadows seemed to fade on themselves, and then as if from nowhere, crouched in the pine needles across from her, was maybe the only mammal who could possibly make her situation worse.

She should have known. She should have guessed he would have watched her leave, after all.

And he was the last mammal she wanted to have to speak to. She didn't want to goad him, or to tell him to get whatever he had planned over with. She definitely didn't want to have to ask for his help again. But what choice did she have now?

Nicholas held a lone finger to the end of his long muzzle. _Quiet._

It was an effort to relax and swallow the words. When she was finally still, he pointed behind him to the sleeping mammals, and then out of the moonlit clearing to the south.

Judith held her breath and nodded, and was reminded that her headache still hadn't receded.

He pulled a dagger from his belt and waited again, watching her carefully, as if measuring whether she would be worth the trouble to set free. When he finally did move out of her vision behind the tree, her arms came loose and swung forward so abruptly that her pauldrons scraped and clacked. She fell to paws and knees.

Nicholas glared at the noise, as if Judith had any control over her dead limbs, and then glared even more severely when she struggled to her feet and toward the dying fire.

Her bag was in disarray, picked through but still mostly packed. Scura had used all of her bandages for his sloppy treatment, and the salve was missing, but being predators they'd left most of her vegetable provisions alone. The shackles were still in their pocket, too: two sets. Perfect.

But Nicholas was in her face again now, too, and when he saw what she meant to do he lifted her pack and swung it onto his own shoulders, out of her reach. She opened her mouth to hiss her indignation at him, but he was being a fox again, all sharp ears and haunting narrow eyes in the moonlight. She was injured and scared besides, and so for the moment it cowed her. His paw was adamant, pointing a single flexed claw south. _Get out of the camp._

Judith finally turned to leave and swept up her glaive as she went. The edge was smudged and streaked with sap, where the bandits had used it like an awkward axe to hack live branches off the trees for firewood. She scowled. It would take forever to clean and resharpen.

Now that they were moving Nicholas took the lead, which he did with a surety that was more than just not being injured. He knew these woods, then, or was confident enough to fake it. He checked with only a brief ear to make sure she was keeping up as the crept from trunk to trunk, toward the edge of the copse.

"Why did you stop me?" she hissed.

"Not now." He turned his head.

"We could have captured them. I could have-"

 _"Quiet."_ He pointed again and kept his voice to a murmur. "We're not out of the woods yet, as it were."

They passed a sentry, the badger from before, slumped over on his side. Dead? No, unconscious. Ambushed. Just looking at whatever Nicholas had done to him made Judith's head hurt. Why had she decided to hit that ferret again? She hoped she never took another blow to the head for as long as she lived. Or dealt one. Scura might have had a point, about not having the stomach to hurt another mammal.

And now they were leaving him and his companions behind. It was wrong, to not address such a clear threat. What if they encountered them again? Would they come after her, when they found she'd been set free? They would know she had help.

Her feet felt weak as they crossed into open ground and the cold breeze. Nicholas led her down toward a gully, and sensation in her arms was slow to return. She hoped he didn't plan to march them all night. She had too many questions to ask, and no breath to manage them right now.

A good half league later they came to what could generously be termed a camp. It was in a depression on the windward side of the slope, which was all wrong, and there was nothing to mark it as a place to stay for the night other than the absence of any snow.

Nicholas dropped her pack against the broad rock face that ran the back length of the perch and sat next to it. Judith kept her feet, uncertain.

He tilted his head at her. "You're welcome, by the way."

She had to settle on a first question. "How long were you following me?"

"Long enough." He prodded her bulging pack. "You're easy to keep track of."

And if he could do it, others could, too. Judith drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders and sat carefully against a large stone on the other side of the dirt. The simple act of taking the weight off her paws made her close her eyes in relief - but there was no escaping the throbbing in her head.

"Why?"

"Why what?" He was enjoying this a little too much, leaning on her pack like it was really his pack. "Follow you? Wait until it was dark to show my muzzle down there?"

He really was going to make her say it. "Why - rescue me? Did you hear what that ferret said?"

"No. Was it interesting?"

Her stomach turned with just the memory of Scura's leer, and she shook her head before she realized how bad an idea that was. If Nicholas really hadn't overheard that particular discussion, she wasn't about to risk even putting notions in his head. He would likely find them repellent, too, but he was still a predator. He wasn't to be trusted, no matter how much she wished she could let her guard down now and just rest.

Still, he'd been following her closely enough to know the bandits had snatched her off the road. And then he had come for her anyway.

She sighed. "Thank you."

Nicholas stared at her for a long time before he gave a sly grin. "The _why_ is because there might come a time where I get further with you in tow than I can on my own."

Judith peered across the dark. He was dressed for travel, yes, but he had no pack or provisions. "You're assuming I agree to follow wherever we're headed."

 _"We?"_ Nicholas raised his eyebrows. "No. You're doing... whatever you're doing, and I won't stop you. But now you can keep doing it near me, so I can avoid any difficult questions from your Sentinel friends. Assuming any of them are still out here."

It was exactly the gambit she'd tried to sucker him into at the Watchhouse, except he would be better at pulling it off than she ever could be. He wouldn't have to pretend to keep her under arrest, or explain why she was wandering somewhere. That would be on her.

And Judith also knew she didn't really have a choice, if she wanted to continue out here. He knew she owed him now.

"And what else do you get out of this?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

"Out of town, while the going is still good."

"We're already out of town."

"So far so good, then," Nicholas said.

She gritted her teeth. "I'm still going to Willow Vale." Let him stop her after all, if he was so scared of the place. It would give her more leverage to find out where he was really headed.

Instead, Nicholas shrugged to indicate their surroundings. "And you're off to a great start."

He was just going to make her headache worse. Judith put her head in her paws and remembered that there was something warm and wet on her temple. Her left paw came away smudged with drying blood.

Nicholas saw, too, and surprised her. He reached into her bag and passed over her apothecary's pouch. Her bandages were gone, but at least there were enough scraps of linen left to make a compress. She wetted them with water from her canteen and dabbed at the cut. It was cold enough to make her start shivering in the winter air, but it would help.

"What did you do to that ferret?" he asked.

"He and his rabble killed mammals in the timberlands north of the village, by Aspenweir." Judith's paws trembled. "And now it sounds like they were going to take advantage of all this unrest to ransom captives back to the Keep. I stopped him." _Distracted him_ , more like. But it was better that she be the one tied up, instead of innocent farmers. They would have stood even less chance.

"It looked more like you missed."

She had been trying not to think about that. If her blade had found its mark properly during that desperate fight, would it have broken the others' resolve? Or just hers?

"I was going to arrest him, before you stopped me."

"You don't arrest creatures like that," Nicholas said. He shook his head in distaste. "He killed mammals, you said? Then there's nothing to redeem. Wilds bandits aren't like the village troublemakers. If he ever escaped prison, he would go right back to haunting the roads, looking for easy targets. He'd have killed you, too, if I hadn't showed up."

"Sentinels don't kill without very good reason." She still believed that, no matter how close her own fight had come. "Or else we're no better than they are."

He blinked. "Your compatriots would have."

"I'm not like Fellwater," she said. "And if the Captain were still here, Fellwater would be in the stockade right now." She still didn't like thinking about that outsider's casual disregard for the lives he was supposed to protect. "And why did you leave the bandits alive, if you really believe that?"

"I don't have the luxury of the rest of the Watch behind me," he said, and cocked an eyebrow. "And it's not like you do, either. Better to vanish than to attract any more undue attention, at least for now."

She begrudged that it made sense. But Judith wondered if he would be so sure of his plan if he knew all of hers. Now that she was free again, she had time to worry about the far bigger problem.

"Mammals ran into magic somewhere in these hills," she said. "I thought you said you were going the other way."

"The other way is open fighting right now, thanks to your friend Fangmire." Nicholas did have a pack here after all, disguised in the brush at the edge of the clearing. He rummaged in it and drew out a compact brazier. It would be no roaring fire, but for small mammals it would be enough. "If it is magic, it will be easier to skirt than violence. It's mindless. Easier to see coming."

"Skirting means going south," Judith guessed. "Toward the Keep. Toward more of the Watch, and the Keep Lord's Guard."

Nicholas went on fiddling with his camp tools and chewed on her persistence. "A bigger crowd is harder to get picked out of." He raised an eyebrow. "Not that you're really worried about little old me."

It made sense, of course. He was always looking for an advantage, weighing the risks. He was too smart not to look out for himself first, and too competent to make mistakes. He'd rescued her from a trio of ruthless bandits in the dead of night just for the leverage it gave him. Even around the elite guards at the keep, Judith knew he would have no trouble finding mammals to fleece.

Just like he had in Morrigan's Ford, with the beaver couple and so many mammals before. That was probably the same brazier, now that she thought about it, and probably fueled with the same coal she had lectured him over. Had he stolen that before he left, too?

She couldn't know. And because she couldn't ask and satisfy her curiosity without passing judgement Nicholas might not deserve, she curled up in her heavy cloak on the far side of the dirt.

And even cradling her throbbing head, even with the shimmering night eyes of a fox just paces from her in the dark, she fell into exhausted sleep in moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's not getting rid of him that easily, it seems.


	4. Chapter 4

_This was a mistake._

Every fiber of his being said so. Nicholas had spent a lifetime honing his instincts and hunches, and right now they told him to make good on his threat from the Watchhouse. He should have been going east, not chasing a single misguided Sentinel into the same trouble he'd worried about for weeks now. He still had time to take all these provisions he'd bought and take his chances with the Watch on his own, instead of following her over the hills toward... whatever it was.

Because it was _something_. This close to Willow Vale, the unease and the curiosity warred at the base of his skull as a faint buzz that he could almost hear sometimes.

Nicholas knew he should just avoid the place. Because that was true, too, what he'd told Judith just two nights ago: Unbound magic had a will of its own, and that will never aligned with that of the mammals that got too close to it.

So he repeated to himself what he'd decided on that morning: He was following Judith because it was in fact his best shot at getting out of this mess in one piece. He would know when it was time to disappear for good.

And he tried to ignore that under the paramount self-preservation, under the seasoned dread that something even worse was coming - there was this nagging curiosity to see it for himself. To know what those who whispered of it had seen. To know what power could make even his quiet sensitivity sing so loud in his head.

He wouldn't share that concern with his travelling companion. For all he knew, she felt it too, and just didn't recognize it for the danger it posed. She was certainly scrambling up the ridge fast enough, looking little worse for wear even after her difficult night in the forest.

"Do you have a deadline to make, Carrots? There's no one back home expecting a report."

"Don't call me that." Her staff clunked against the rocks and she glared, until the vista took her attention again. "The travelers I met said they had fled the bandit attacks. There might be more mammals that need help."

They wouldn't see them from here, where they were avoiding the road. It was just more open country, free of snow for now, flecked with stands of trees and scarp. But morning light was already giving to sluggish dark clouds to the west. They were early, for the season's nighttime storms. They made Nicholas uneasy.

"Judy, then. It rolls off the tongue better."

She didn't snipe back - at least not out loud. Her ears were very nearly quivering in indignation. "The bandits talked of a storm to the west of Willow Vale." She pointed to focus him. "That one, I'm guessing. And they said they were going back."

Nicholas felt that unease sharpen. He'd heard other mentions of a great storm not too long ago. "And you want to _follow_ the mammals that threatened to kill you?"

"If anything, they're following us now," she said. "And two of them are injured, and they used all their bandages. That will slow them down."

Nicholas eyed hers. She'd fashioned a crude strip from the hem of her tunic, wrapped tight around her brow and the base of her ears. He supposed it was, in the strictest sense, better than nothing. "All right."

"And there might be someone there who knows what happened, for a start," she said, and started picking her way down the slope. "Do you have any contacts in the village?"

"None who would stay, if it's as bad as the rumors say," Nicholas said. He expected to find a wasteland, actually, so he could be pleasantly surprised if it were any better. Carrots here - Judy - hadn't seemed to consider that.

But he followed alongside anyway, just off the spine of the ridge so they wouldn't be silhouetted against the sky for anyone watching their passage. It would be another hour's strenuous progress, he judged, until they came back to where the road curved to meet the village gates.

And it was eerily quiet now. Even a wilderness should have had the breeze, or birdsong or the rush of a brook. But the clouds on the horizon seemed to pull all of it into them and muffle the whole sky. It was just their footsteps and the soft thump of Judy's glaive. She was on edge, too, though Nicholas couldn't say if it was the same apprehension he felt. Every so often her ears would swivel to to fix on something he hadn't picked up.

"What was it you did in the village?" she eventually asked. "More rent rackets?"

Nicholas stared at her oversized backpack. "You make it sound so unglamorous."

"You're exploiting mammals," she pointed out, with that sanctimonious edge to her voice that always made the fur of his ears stand up. "Mucking out compost stalls would be more honorable."

"It's a good thing no one expects me to be honorable, then. Or to ever turn around and go back toward the magic after all, or to step in to pull one of the village's last Sentinels out of the fire..."

He could see it winding her up, which was the whole point. But when she finally did look at him it was to smile.

"Guilty conscience?"

Nicholas gritted his teeth. Every moment he spent around this rabbit did permanent damage to his reputation. "Don't get too used to it. Unless you want to come to the Keep, too."

"Not until I find out what happened." Judy craned up at the stubborn clouds that were now overhead. Storms didn't usually sit still like this. "Is this what made you leave?"

"Business dried up." Nicholas would rather keep telling half-truths that reinforced her suspicions, than let on that the whole situation was making him more nervous than ever. She might have already guessed, now that they were almost there and he was paying closer attention to the ridges above them. He put a paw on the reassuring hilt of one of his knives. "All my clients started thinking about moving."

And Nicholas decided he wouldn't have blamed those made-up clients, when they came to the top of the last ridge and what was left of Willow Vale spread out in the low ground ahead.

The buildings were still upright, but as they drew closer Nicholas could see something had gone badly wrong. The slate rooftops of the rectory and the Watchhouse were collapsed in on themselves. Dark smoke was still curling above patchy fires. The main gates swung ajar, to reveal deserted roads and signs of struggle and violence.

And something new tapped at Nicholas' hearing, like tiny stones on a slope of larger rocks. It came and went with the wind.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Judy perked her ears and turned slowly.

"Like scratching. I don't know where from."

"No..."

Judy paused at the threshold of the Watchhouse by the gate long enough to ready her blade. Nicholas stayed there in the sheltering stone, to watch their backs, because there was something wrong about being the only living beings in sight at this time of day. The wind moaned through broken windows and pushed ash and soot along the road, lending the illusion of animation where there was none. If there were mammals there to see them, he would have known. This... this felt different.

She reappeared almost immediately.

"It's empty," she said. She still had her glaive in both paws. "Someone's gone through the armory and the stores, too, and it wasn't the Watch."

Bandits, then, or desperate refugees, but Nicholas doubted any of them had lingered or would return. Everything he recognized about this place felt off now, out of focus and true in ways he couldn't quite place. The unnatural storm above them to the west stole the afternoon light and rumbled with distant, unseasonable thunder. There was no snow here. It was too warm for it. Instead the air smelled of ozone and smoke, and every step he took toward the old square at the center of the village made the fur of his neck stand further and further up.

The well was the traditional hub of nearly every village. Mammals gathered there to draw water, or exchange news or do business.

This one was shattered to its individual stones as if by a giant fist, from the inside. A great sweep of smooth surface radiated across the square from its buckled ruin, mostly to the east, but with tendrils and skewers that fanned against all of the buildings.

It looked like ice, the way it shone dully in the fires and reflected distorted versions of their muzzles back to them. But Nicholas realized when Judy tapped her pole against it that it was glass. The earth itself had melted solid.

"Magic did this?"

"That or lightning," Nicholas said. His mouth was dry. "And lightning doesn't come from under the ground."

He followed the nearest tendril toward the stoop of the blacksmith's shop. The wood was scorched black and the door was splinters, and he suspected the inside would be just as ruined if he dared to investigate. It must have gone into all the buildings like this. The next one over might have been the baker, if he remembered correctly.

Judy's shriek was short and choked, like she'd cut it off. Nicholas whirled anyway.

She was staring at the other side of the well, ears down, eyes wide. He joined her, and wished he hadn't.

It was - or had been - a mammal, a large predator species in Council Watch livery, pauldrons and all. But they sat in a dark stain of old blood and their limbs and neck were scored with deep cuts that wound along their length. Nicholas could see muscle and bone; razor teeth where skin and fur had pulled from the skull.

Judy made a noise like she might be sick.

_"Like this,"_ she said. "The mammals at the gate. They- were like this, but they were still alive."

"That was two days ago, now," Nicholas said. The foreboding sank deeper into his chest. There was no blood on this poor soul's fur. It hadn't left them naturally. How could anyone survive that for long?

"That works, almost," Judy said, no steadier than before. "The fires are nearly burnt out."

He focused his unease on that unlikely scenario instead. "They got all the way to Morrigan's Ford in two days, looking like this?"

"If they were on the edge of it, or in shock? Maybe they could have made it."

"Over that terrain, in the cold."

"I know what I saw," Judy said. Her voice was sharpening to match his. She tore her gaze away from the dead creature and put her paw against her forehead. "And others here must have. There would be more bodies otherwise."

"What do you expect them to know that could possibly help? Mammals who saw this happen probably went mad for it."

He hadn't been ready to believe it himself until now. And it was still hard to reconcile what he saw with what he thought was possible.

But this was no illusion. Judy had been right the whole time. His worries had been right, the rumors had all been right. And now his damned curiosity had gotten the better of him. He should have taken his chances with the fighting to the east after all. At least that he could fight back against, if he had to.

Instead here he was, way too close to the static on the edges of everything, and suppressing the crazy urge to peer down into the glassed well to see where the wild energy had come from. He shook his head to dislodge the intrusive thoughts, hitched up his bag and made for the edge of the square.

"But this came out of nowhere," Judy said. She hurried to catch up. "Right? You were here not two weeks ago. It was normal."

"No, it felt different," Nicholas said.

"Different how?"

"I can't explain it to you." He rubbed his fingers absently against his thumb and watched the sky. "If you've never felt it before, how can I?"

"Try me. You can feel it now, can't you? You said you heard it. What are you listening for?"

His breath hissed between his teeth. "What good will it do you? You can't harness it. No one can. Even if the Watch were all mages, a thousand strong, you wouldn't be able to stop this."

"I'm the only one left who can try."

"That's suicide, Carrots."

"Then running is nothing but _delaying_ suicide," she snapped. She was as angry and as scared as he was, when he looked down at her bandaged brow to protest, and cut him off with a stamping paw before he could speak. "No, it's worse. You know something happened here. You can feel it even more than I can. And you're still not going to do anything about it. It's cowardice."

"You might have to call me a coward again, then. There's bravery-" Nicholas brushed past her. "And there's folly. You would stand more chance if I had left you in the forest with the bandits. So would I."

"That doesn't change this, Nicholas." She stopped by the burnt-out shell of the western watchtower and spread her paws. "Fellwater and his band- they killed the only other mammals who saw. I was too late to help any of them here. So I have to keep going. Because maybe the next ones I can get to in time."

Never mind that it would kill her sooner than later. Never mind that this was beyond her, or him, or even the mages at the Keep whose powers were enough to bend rock or read minds. She wouldn't care, and he would never be able to make her.

"If you make everything your business," Nicholas told her, "You won't live long to regret it."

He turned to leave again and the thunder rolled over them.

Without the buildings and low trees in the way, it echoed louder. Nicholas followed his ears around. What lay to the west, under the clouds? True, deep forest, he remembered, on the other side of the valley. Refuge, perhaps, and better than the open hills he and Judy had come through. But mammals wouldn't risk the weather. It was as unnatural as whatever calamity had sprung up here in the first place.

He stepped onto the first set of stairs at the watchtower, so he could see over the stone wall and into the field below them.

Half of it was gone, shattered and fused in another swath of frozen glass that seemed to boil up out of the ground like a breaching sea creature, and back down to tunnel under the short stone wall at the edge of the village. The well must have only been the endpoint, Nicholas realized. The magic had come from further west.

In the grass that remained, he could see tracks. Mammals had passed this way, bearing west themselves, and not in any organized fashion. Reeds were bent and bruised where larger feet had stepped. The cold mud bore prints from smaller mammals, too, predators and prey alike.

And the whole scene was shot through with the unmistakable splashes and trails of blood.

The noise at the edge of his perception sharpened again and pushed to the forefront. Nicholas worked his jaw to dispel it and turned to the rabbit beside him as she joined him.

"This is what you're trying to stop."

"They were alive," she breathed.

"However briefly."

"No, no. They got hurt-" She turned and pointed one-armed with her staff. "And _then_ they started walking. All of them, the same way. That's why we didn't see anyone while we were coming up on the gates. They didn't get taken, they went themselves."

It made no sense. But then, none of it made sense. The field was empty but for bloodstains and pawprints, and it was just as unsettling as the tableau back in the village. Here in the open, the cloud kept drawing Nicholas' eyes.

Judy was following his gaze. "How far to the trees?"

"Probably hours, and that's in fair weather," he said. He pointed to the clouds. "But that's not fair weather. They should have gone south toward the Keep before they went into that."

"The bandits did it," she said, and looked ill again. "I remember what Scura said, and the jackal. They were supposed to meet in that direction. Somewhere in the storm."

"Why?"

She still didn't have an answer for him. But she seemed as keen to find one as ever. She went to the gate and struck out west in a nearly straight line, stepping aside only to avoid the first smear of blood on the rocks.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/)   
>  [chronology](https://falke-scribblings.tumblr.com/chronology)


End file.
